“Online disappointment: Young Tunisian bloggers who promoted and recorded the events of the Arab Spring now find that, without a common enemy, the social media are just a cacophony of divided and conflicting views,” Smain Laacher and Cédric Terzi, LeMonde Diplomatique, Feb. 15, 2012.

“The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom: Top-down, international regulation is antithetical to the Net, which has flourished under its current governance model,” Robert M. McDowell, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 21, 2012.

According to the complaint, Webkinz asks children to provide their first name, date of birth, gender and state of residence during registration, urging the users “it is important to use real information.” As the child navigates the animated website, dubbed Webkinz World, Webkinz monitors the child’s activity by depositing software to track his or her movements through the site, the complaint said.

As the children play in Webkinz World — which is aimed at children ages 6 to 13 and enables users to play games and interact with other members — Ganz allows third parties to track their activities for behavioral advertising purposes, the advocacy group alleges.

Ganz says parents can “easily opt out” of having their children view ads, noting it is “committed to being highly responsible in our approach to advertising.” But ads continue to appear on the site, even after parents have opted out, according to the complaint. In fact, the complaint said, ads are incorporated into Webkinz games such as “Wheel of Wow,” which attracts some 4 million players a month.

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood alleges that Ganz’s privacy policy is deceptive because it states that the information it gathers from children during the registration process could not be used to identify the child offline. It further alleges that the practice of using software — “cookies” and “web Beacons” — to track children’s activities and serve them targeted ads without parental consent “contravenes FTC guidance on behavioral advertising” and amounts to an unfair trade practice.

The terms of the FTC’s proposed settlement apply only to Facebook. But to paraphrase noted legal scholar Bob Dylan, companies that want to stay off the law enforcement radar don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. What practical pointers can your business take from the Facebook case and other recent FTC actions dealing with consumer privacy?